Chris Sutton refuses to compare £2m Celtic midfield man to Matt O’Riley

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Matt O’Riley really was a special player at Celtic.

And if fans are honest, Celtic were lucky in more ways than one to get the midfielder after a failed summer move for another player down south.

A failed Celtic move for Riley McGree led Ange Postecoglou to O’Riley’s door and after paying £1.5m for the classy midfielder, supporters quickly saw how special he was.

While O’Riley now plies his trade at Marseille, Chris Sutton refuses to compare the Celtic hero to one of Brendan Rodgers’ summer signings.

• READ MORE: Jens Berthel Askou raves about Celtic again and says Bhoys did something rare vs Motherwell

Sutton refuses to compare Benjamin Nygren to Celtic hero Matt O’Riley

Benjamin Nygren has enjoyed an indifferent start to his Celtic career since his £2m summer transfer move with some good performances and some not so good.

Despite inspiring Celtic’s comeback against Motherwell, Sutton is not getting carried away with the Swedish midfielder just yet.

Sutton told Record Celtic [20m], “Nygren, who’s actually scored some important goals for Celtic, for two million pounds, well, that represents an OK bit of business domestically, but I always think he comes too deep for the ball at times.

“And I don’t want to go down that route of comparing him to Matt O’Riley, but the issue is we all have pretty, not necessarily short memories, but we always think about players who were so effective in certain positions and comparing them.

“And even Iheanacho, who’s had an OK start, and he has had an OK start scoring important penalties, but I think he could offer so much more in terms of his movement.

“I mean, he’s only just come in, he hasn’t played a lot of football, but we’re hoping that he’s going to kick on and play unbelievably well, and he has done OK.”

Benjamin Nygren’s Celtic stats so far

For such a small price, Celtic have had a decent return from Nygren already as his Scottish Premiership stats from Fotmob show:

• Appearances: 7
• Starts: 5
• Minutes: 493
• Goals: 4
• Assists: 1
• Pass accuracy: 83.7%
• Expected assists (xA): 2.36
• Expected goals (xG): 2.82

What fans will also remember is that O’Riley was in and out of Celtic’s team under Ange Postecoglou before he turned into a superstar so Sutton is correct to err on the side of caution with the Swede.